As the school year came to a close, students all across North America submitted blog posts and we have selected our winners for May’s Student of the Month contest. We are proud to share this student’s inspiring story about the impact EverFi’s financial literacy courses has had.

Longley P. from Von Steuben Metropolitan High School said:

The EverFi program had a personal impact on my life and the decisions that I will make moving forward by introducing me the fundamentals in the economy; what it is, how you use it, and why you use it. Some things that this program introduced were: savings, or the process of saving money while earning more money at the same time; banking, or the process of how banks work in savings, interests, and special fees; payments: the different types and their advantages and disadvantages, like cash or paper, which accrues no interest but maintains lots of control, and plastic debit or credit cards, direct withdrawal from account and a loan from the bank to pay later, respectively; debt, or money owed to someone, how to pay it back and stay out of it; Future investments for higher education, your first car, a house, etc.; insurance, or how to be protected from debt in case of an incident; privacy, or how to protect yourself from identity theft.

The program has changed my attitude or behavior by guiding me in reevaluating the value and meaning of money, helping me understand why the world loves earning and spending money for their own benefits, both long-term and short-term, rather than just spending on what they desire. My future goal is to exceed expectations of me in high school, and especially excel in the computer science field to become a software developer specializing in video games. I want to pursue this because the generation today focuses so much on gaming, making it an activity that I want to take to the next level. The EverFi course I completed will help prepare me to achieve my goal by giving me a conscience inside my mind that is specialized in handling my finances, which will help me invest in my future goals. This course also helped me understand how to not spend money irrationally, and instead spending it on something that will get me closer to my future goal of working in gaming education.

I have seen most of my family members spend money in the least beneficial way, on scams such as free giveaways with fees, spending it to only feed their wants, like on cigars, and spending more than what’s needed. Knowing the difference between necessities and wants is crucial. Now that I have completed this course, the first set of actions that I will focus on will be to help my entire family (mother, father, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) set up a budget, determine what they need and what they don’t need, help them look at their current budget that lead them to debt and then their budget that will get them out of debt, as well as how much money they could have been saving all this time for future investments. Then, I will help reconcile all of their statements in order to make sure they got the message and see if there were any unusual activities. By doing this my family will be able to live much more comfortably and maybe get new cars, invest in a home, and live in a much safer, cleaner environment.